December 4, 2016 - Theme: Peace (part of a series on Transformation)

Sermons by Hamilton

Scripture: ISAIAH 11:1-10
John McEnroe, one of history’s greatest tennis players, was known almost as much for his temper as for his talent. There was, about him, an unending sense that he was right, and he was going to let you know it, a kind of relentless narcissism. Remarkably, after his career was over, he came to see this himself. He tells about what it was like for him to be number one.
McEnroe, for example, “used sawdust to absorb the sweat on his hands during a match. [One] time the sawdust was not to his liking, so he went over to the can of sawdust and knocked it over with his racket. His agent, Gary came dashing over to find out what was wrong.
[McEnroe remembers the moment.] “‘You call that sawdust?’ I said. I was actually screaming at him: The sawdust was ground too fine! ‘This looks like rat poison. Can’t you get anything right?’ So Gary ran out and, twenty minutes later, came back with a fresh can of coarser sawdust . . . and twenty dollars less in his pocket: He’d had to pay a union employee to grind up a two-by-four. This is what it was like to be number one.
“He goes on to tell . . . about how he once threw up all over a dignified Japanese lady who was hosting him. The next day she bowed, apologized to him, and presented him with a gift. ‘This,’ McEnroe proclaims, ‘is also what it was like to be number one.’
“‘Everything was about you . . . “Did you get everything you need? Is everything okay? We’ll pay you this, we’ll do that, we’ll kiss your behind.” You only have to do what you want; your reaction to anything else is, “Get the hell out of here.” For a long time I didn’t mind a bit’” (quoted in Carol Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, p. 31).
What a skewed vision of his place in the world. And it’s pretty easy to dismiss such behavior as that of a rich spoiled brat. We’re not like that, we think. And of course to a certain extent that’s right—we’re not so dramatically like that. At the same time, though, I suspect there’s at least a small element of self-absorption in all of us.
Just this week, a church member sent me a blog post by a leadership guru named Dan Rockwell. Rockwell writes about the lies we tell ourselves to pretend, in a sense, that we’re better than we are. Here, he says, are some lies you may believe about yourself: “Your [work] team [or your family] loves it when you tweak their work.” Not! Or this: “others don’t see your weaknesses.” Uh-uh. Another lie we tell ourselves: “Your way is [invariably] the best way.” Really?!
Here, though, is the lie Rockwell mentions that struck me as unnervingly accurate: “You fail because of circumstances. Others fail because of character” (https://leadershipfreak.blog/2016/11/26/7-ways-to-deal-with-the-lies-leaders-tell-themselves/). How often do we think that: we fail because things just didn’t go right; others fail because they have some major character flaw. Our business went bankrupt because the economy went south just as we were getting going; somebody else’s business went bankrupt because they didn’t work hard enough and didn’t put in the hours they needed. Our marriage failed because our spouse let us down; a neighbor’s marriage failed because they weren’t present enough or didn’t communicate well or had had an affair. The lie that Rockwell so perceptively sees is this: when you and I fail, it’s because of the luck of the draw. When others fail, though, it’s because, at some level or other, they don’t deserve it: they’re flawed.
These lies we tell ourselves may not be as flamboyantly self-centered as John McEnroe’s, but they all grow from the same basic impulse: I am right and righteous; you are flawed and blemished. I am at the center of the universe; you are somewhere on its periphery. Or, as Rockwell says, my failings are the result of circumstances; yours are the result of a character flaw.
It’s into this dynamic that the prophet Isaiah speaks. Isaiah sees how terribly fractured the world is. He sees wolf and lamb at each other’s throats—or maybe just wolf at lamb’s throat. He sees cows afraid of bears. He sees playing children bitten by venomous cobras. Wherever he looks he sees pain and fear and anger and violence. It’s not the world he envisioned. It’s not a world in which anyone really wants to live.
We certainly know that world. We know the brokenness Isaiah sees, and can identify with his despair. We see poverty and war and political divisions. We see anger and judgment and dismissal. We see a world that falls drastically short of what we probably hoped it would be.
And what we may well fail to acknowledge is that it’s not just others who make that happen. We, too, play a role in that degradation and division. We condemn the mistakes of others while excusing our own. And in doing so, we splinter our fundamental unity.
Several years ago, a group of Japanese tourists stopped me to ask directions. They didn’t speak a word of English, and with smug irritation I wondered why they had come here without any attempt to know the language. They should have learned some English! I thought. Then a couple of years ago, on a Federated trip to Italy, I couldn’t understand a word. How could I? I thought—I can’t know every language, but I still want to visit these countries. And like the disciple Peter hearing the cock crow after his three denials, I suddenly remembered my hasty dismissal of those Japanese tourists I had met earlier. I had judged them and excused myself.
And it’s into these misguided sensibilities of ours that this vision of God comes, offered through the pen of Isaiah. It’s a vision of righteous rule by a benevolent leader. It’s a vision of a world in which those who can’t get along do get along. It’s a vision of justice and equity, in which those whose lives are broken find wholeness and peace.
Justice and equity: two qualities we don’t always do so well. And at least part of the reason is that we tend to dismiss those we view as on the underside of history. The reason people are poor and hungry and excluded, we tend to believe, is because of something they’ve done. And the reason I’m comfortable is because of my high character. While I’m righteous, so-and-so over there is struggling because they lack backbone and grit.
We in the church are pretty good at charity, at responding to local and particular need. Ask me to bring a bag of groceries for someone who’s hungry and I’ll respond. What’s more challenging for us, and for society in general, is figuring out how to change things so that people aren’t hungry in the first place. And at least part of the reason for our inability or reluctance to change the way things are is that there is so often this underlying judgment being passed on those who live in poverty.
The Bible, though, is relentless in its prodding to make things right for those who suffer. The Bible doesn’t say, “Help those in need as long as they’re carrying their fair share.” It doesn’t say, “Help those in need if they appear to have high character, or they look like you, or they tug at your heart-strings because they’re just so darned cute.” No, in God’s world, the new ruler whom Isaiah anticipates will “judge those who are needy by what is right, render decisions on earth’s poor with justice” (11:4, The Message). This is central to God’s holy vision. As the Bible says again and again, there is no priority greater than attending to those who are on the margins, those who don’t have enough.
And to be honest, it’s this that’s so difficult for us. Not only are we reluctant to be as generous with others as we are with ourselves, but we face the daunting task of figuring out the specifics of how to live justly. It’s far from obvious how to tend, in a systemic way, to those who are poor and weak and side-lined.
That mandate, though, sits out in front of us and calls to us: justice and equity for those who are, in Isaiah’s words, poor and meek. Which is why the church, since time immemorial, has had to wrestle with how to set up our society, how to organize our common life. Sometimes I’m asked how involved the church should be in the politics of the day. And that’s a fantastic and compelling question. Many of us have grown up with the notion of faith as a private, interior matter, convinced that exterior, political matters have no place in the church or in theological reflection.
That assumption, though, is always challenged by the recurring biblical emphasis on justice and righteousness and equity as paramount. Ancient prophets urged attention to people on the margins. Jesus took up that same mantle and called for relentless care for those who have little. Remember his message in the synagogue at the start of his ministry? “The Spirit of God is upon me, who has anointed me to bring good news to those who are poor, who has sent me to proclaim release to those who are captive and recovery of sight to those who are blind, to let those who are oppressed go free” (Luke 4:18). Justice and righteousness are not incidental to the ministry of Jesus. They’re part of its very core.
This is why the church speaks up on behalf of those who may have been pushed to the sidelines. It’s why the church advocates for those who have been left out and discarded. The church is always charged with tending to those who are defenseless and vulnerable.
The difficulty, of course, is that the particulars of that ministry are not always entirely clear. The great Protestant minister William Sloane Coffin, former chaplain of Yale University and senior pastor of New York’s Riverside Church, once paid a visit to former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to plead for an end to the Vietnam War and for increased resources to alleviate poverty. Kissinger asked Coffin how the government was supposed to do that. And Coffin responded, “Our job is to proclaim that justice should roll down like waters [Amos 5:24]. Your job, Mr. Kissinger, is to work out the details of the irrigation system.”
We don’t always know what the particulars of justice and righteousness look like, which is why people of good faith may disagree strongly about how to implement these central elements of faith. But just because we don’t agree doesn’t mean we should abandon those principles. Those tenets are crucial to living a just and faith-filled life.
So yes, it’s important to respond in particular ways to the needs that are arrayed before us. At the same time, though, it’s also incumbent upon people of faith to try to change the systems that condone those same needs. Is it possible, for example, that caring for those in need might ask of a society that, just as it provides education for all, it also needs to provide health care for all? Is it possible that justice asks of a national budget that it provide resources to war-torn lands struggling to feed their people? Is it possible that equity asks us to shape our laws such that they protect people who are gay or lesbian, or who might be transitioning in their gender identity? Is it possible that the mandate to care affects how we treat immigrants and refugees from other lands?
Yes, charity is certainly fine and faith-filled and crucial. But so also is ordering a society such that those who are, in Isaiah’s words, poor and meek find refuge and sanctuary and hope. This table is sometimes said to be that table where all God’s people gather together in peace. Even as we’re inclined to judge others while excusing ourselves, it’s vital to remember that justice and righteousness and equity are foundational to the life of faith, and hallmarks of that peace. May we pursue those grand and noble goals with humility and passion and love.